


I Don't Feel Anything (At All)

by MalecAcid



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ben Hargreeves Deserves Better, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Ben Hargreeves' Tentacles | Bentacles, Ben-Hargreeves Centric, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Im sorry i had to tag that jfjsjdk, No Incest, i hate not tagging any like...relationships but theres none in this so kdnsksk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26279530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecAcid/pseuds/MalecAcid
Summary: Ben was six years old when he tried to talk to the horror for the first time.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 45





	I Don't Feel Anything (At All)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so!!! This used to be in a oneshot collection (Istanbul not Constantinople) but I decided to break up the three fics that were in it and post them seperately bc I was not vibing™ with the fact that they weren't connected in any way jdjsjdjs but yeah if this seems familiar it's bc of that jfjsjsj and!!! It's revised and edited a bit bc past me didn't proofread because im an invalid but yea anyways I hope you like this 🥺🥺
> 
> Also!! The title is from the song King of the clouds by panic at the disco kdnzksnan trying my best titles are hard 😔😔

Ben was two years old when he felt the horror moving around inside of him for the first time.

He thought that he was hungry, so he cried, and was given food. He ate the food, and the feeling didn't go away, so he cried more. He pointed to his stomach when the nice lady asked what was wrong. She put him in bed and told him that he would feel better in the morning. 

He didn't. 

He didn't cry again, though. He was quiet, nodded when the nice lady asked if he was feeling better. He didn't cry about his stomach again. 

Ben was three years old when he saw the horror for the first time. 

He was eating, and his stomach began to hurt more than usual. More than the usual constant ache. It felt almost like he was burning from the inside out. He looked down and saw that his stomach was not smooth. Instead, there was a large patch of skin on the left side of his stomach that was protruding slightly. 

A tear leaked from his eye at the pain, and he poked the area in hopes that it would stop hurting. What he did not expect was the way that it seemed to slowly go away, as if something was moving inside of him. The burning sensation slowly stopped, and the pain dulled to the normal ache. He wiped the tear off of his cheek and continued to eat. 

Ben was three and a half when his dad saw the horror for the first time. 

He was sitting in this weird glass box, his six other siblings in similar boxes around him, and their father was sitting close, notebook in hand as he stared at them. 

Ben thought that it was a little weird, it's not like he could argue, though. The box was tight, and he was cold without his blanket and he was bored. Sitting in the same glass box with the same surroundings and no noise except for breathing and the occasional crying from his siblings was boring. But again, it's not like he could argue. 

It had only been about four hours of absolute nothingness when he began to feel the burning sensation in his stomach again. He looked down to his stomach as he winced to see a part of it sticking out, burning painfully just as it had before. 

He took his hand and poked at the spot to make it stop, and his stomach slowly returned to its normal shape, the burning sensation fading away. 

He looked up from his stomach to see his father staring at him strangely, standing up from his seat, the pencil and notebook on the floor having fallen off of his lap when he stood in surprise. 

He bent down to pick the items back up, and began to write quickly with glances at Ben every so often as he watched him do so before he eventually sat back down in his chair, focusing more on Ben than he had before. 

Ben was four years old the first time the horror managed to rip his stomach open. 

He was in his new room for the first night since he had gotten it, too excited to sleep, grinning from his place under his covers as his eyes glanced around the room. 

He was eventually able to close his eyes, but before he could drift off, the burning sensation in his stomach started again, and he sighed in frustration as tears pricked at his eyes. 

He pulled the blanket off of himself after hitting his stomach through them didn't seem to work, the burning sensation only worsening as he attempted to make it go away. 

When he pulled it off, he looked down to see a part of his stomach coming out farther than ever before, inches away from where it was supposed to be, and Ben gasped at both the sight and the sharp pain he felt as it started moving farther and farther out. 

He hit it even harder, but that seemed to make whatever was inside of him even angrier as it pushed harder against his stomach and he screamed as he watched his skin start to tear from the inside out, seeing something red beginning to poke out of his stomach, tearing it open even more as he screamed louder and louder. 

The new nice lady, the one he was beginning to know as mom, ran quickly into the room and just as the door shut behind her the red thing ripped through his stomach even more and he screamed louder, grabbing at the sides of his stomach, unknowing of the hand on his shoulder as the burning sensation continued to grow and get worse and worse as the thing tore further through his stomach. 

The sound of his siblings pounding at the door as his father held it closed and locked it while they called out his name was drowned out by his screams, increasing as the pain increased as another thing decided to tear open the other side of his stomach, and another one above that one and another one beside that one. 

What could have only been a few minutes felt as if it had lasted centuries, the beings that were inside of him coming out and knocking things in his new room out of place, ramming into his bookshelf and breaking walls, throwing things off of his desk as they controlled him rather than the other way around. 

When they finally ended their reign of destruction, they went straight back into his stomach, sealing the tear that they had made only minutes before, the pain immediately dulling to the usual ache that was always there. He sat, exhausted on his bed, falling asleep almost instantly. 

Ben was six years old when he tried to talk to the horror for the first time. 

He was tired. Tired of his father yelling at him for not being able to control the things inside of his stomach. Tired of his siblings being almost afraid of him, afraid for him when he would scream as the beings tore through him beyond his control. 

It hurt. It hurt so much when they would poke at him, poke through him. And he was tired, tired of it and tired of them. 

It was two in the morning, he was lying in bed, unable to sleep as the horror decided that it was a good day to poke at him, but not through him. He tried to poke them back, but it didn't work as it did when they first appeared. 

He leaned forward, moving his head closer to his stomach as he spoke under his breath, whispering so that he would not wake up the others. 

"Can you stop? Please." He whispered tearfully. "It hurts." The horror seemed to poke at him harder and he sighed as tears of pain and frustration leaked from his eyes. He brought his hand to his face to wipe them away. 

"Please stop." He said again, to no avail, and more tears fell that he swiped away angrily. 

"Stop." He whispered again, turning to lay on his stomach and falling asleep. 

Ben was eight years old when he got the horror under his control for the first time. 

His father yelled and yelled at him in the training room so he screamed and the beings ripped through his stomach, swinging in the direction that Ben pointed them in. Knocking down the mannequins that his father had set up with the expectation that they would not be knocked down. 

Ben gasped when the horror went back inside of him, and looked to his father whos head was shoved in his notebook as he wrote, and Ben sighed, clutching at his stomach. 

Ben was thirteen when he had to kill someone for the first time. 

It was their first mission. He didn't want to, he didn't want to kill those people. He knew they were bad, but he didn't want to. 

He walked into the room with the robbers and let the horror free, never able to forget the looks on their faces as he tore them apart, the blood splattering all over him as the horror retreated back into his stomach. 

Blood he could never seem to completely scrub off of his skin. 

Ben was fifteen years old when he tried to talk to the horror for the first time in nine years. 

They had just gotten back from their mission. He was exhausted. It was late, and everyone was in bed. 

The daily pain in his stomach was slowly growing from the time it had started, and Ben was tired, tired of it. 

"Why don't you leave me alone." He said quietly, closing his eyes as he spoke. When he got no response of any kind, as he had expected, he spoke again. 

"Why?" He said, quieter than before, and shut his eyes tightly, eventually falling into sleep. 

Ben was seventeen when the horror tore him apart from the inside out. 

Ben was seventeen and a half when he realized that he could feel the horror in his stomach as a ghost. 

Ben was twenty-eight when he realized that ghosts could still feel pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Tears :')


End file.
